Golgotha
by rebellioninabottle
Summary: ""Did you know her?" she demanded."For a little while," he replied, shortly. The girl was quiet again. Stared at the coffin. Sighed." MikaRaizo
1. Chapter 1

Title: Golgotha (1/?)

Author: Rebellioninabottle

Rating: ?

Author's Note: I'm discontinuing 'Bound'. For some reason, that story died in me before I even got into it good, and that annoyed the crap out of me. The good thing is that I was bitten by another bunny so enjoy!

_i._

_It ain't fair, ya know?_

A wave of black clad people swept passed him, but he did not see them, nor cared to pull himself from the tunnel vision that his eyes narrowed to, that his mind scaled down to a single scope. The wave washed over him, sidestepped him, ignored him, and continued surging forward, until it tapered off to a few stranglers who only glanced at him as he stood, staring resolutely ahead, a bouquet of flowers gripped in his pale fists.

She liked flowers.

Orchids, in fact.

He knew that from what he'd read of her, and the lingering traces of it that had hung around her apartment.

Family Orchidaceae.

Genus Miltonia.

He breathed in the cool morning air, and stepped forward. One step then two, a laborious effort, even if he had a body built for high endurance. One step then two. Across dew covered grass that crunched underfoot. One step then two. Under the hypnotic sway of Spanish moss as it hung from the high-vaulted branches of oak trees and birch. One step then two. Through the rickety, old rusted gates of Rest Haven and into the city of the dead.

Tombstones shot up from the ground at irregular angles, some of the names faded away into memory and time, others fresh and new, with recently disturbed earth at their feet. His destination was not too far from here, passed an outcropping of stone mausoleums, statues of Catholic saints and angels with outstretched wings and the cold, judging glare of the righteous, watching him in silence as he passed.

He wasn't a religious man. Had never been, but the angry glares of the angels left him cold inside, like those stone statues could see into the very depths of his being and laid all that they found there bear for the world to see.

He swallowed, and continued on. Until he was there, at the place he dreaded, but had—_needed_—to come to all the same.

The coffin smelled of polish and wood and of the sickly sweet roses that fluttered gently in the breeze that stirred. He stopped. Stared at the oblong box. Gripped the orchids in his hands until they shook and a few petals fell to the earth.

It was silent here, most of the mourners had fled this place, too gripped by sorrow and despair to stay. In the distance, he could here the approach of a bulldozer, and beside the coffin lay a mound of freshly dug earth. It was a reddish-orange tinge the dirt, a staple of Georgia that was so well-known he couldn't have denied where he was even if he'd wanted to. He didn't, just knelt down in front of the coffin, staring up at its sleek, glossy sides as sunlight dappled and reflected off its mirror-like surface and shone, for just a split second.

He didn't know for how long he had crouched there, just watching, but he knew when he was no longer alone.

He heard her gentle breathing, the hitch in her throat of surprise at finding someone else here, beside this coffin, beside this soon to be un-empty grave. He made no move to acknowledge her, and she came to stand beside him, silent for a moment, watching him and watching the sarcophagus.

She spoke, "You weren't here earlier." It was not a question, but a simple statement of fact.

He nodded, but said nothing. The girl was quiet for a moment, staring at him hard.

"Did you know her?" she demanded.

"For a little while," he replied, shortly. The girl was quiet again. Stared at the coffin. Sighed.

"They said—" the girl paused for a moment, breathed—"they said when the car exploded, she died instantly. Didn't suffer. Burned so that only her bones remained."

The man winced, pressed his lips to a thin, grim line. "Yes. I know. I read the file."

"How?" the girl asked, surprised. "My father couldn't even look it over, and he's a cop."

"I have my ways."

The girl turned to him, pointing at the flowers he gripped. "She likes those."

"Yes."

She paused, her silence contemplative, before crouching down beside him.

And finally, he turned to look at her, her brown eyes wide and familiar, but not familiar in the sense of the eyes that he wanted to see—longed to see. They were familiar in the sense that, when he looked into their deep brown depths, he could see a familial resemblance.

And he could see himself suspended in their dark depths, twin mirrors that captured him and held him and showed him his pale skin and dark black hair, faming a face that looked so soft and young, like it belonged to the lead singer of a boy band. He met her curious gaze then looked away, back at the coffin.

Reached up. Touched its cool, smooth side.

The girl flinched.

"What's your name?" she whispered.

He was silent for a moment, working his jaw, before he swallowed and answered, "Raizo. My name is Raizo."

"My name is Alyssa. Alyssa Coretti," the girl replied, standing slowly. She stared at him then turned to the coffin and placed a hand gingerly beside his on the cold, dark wood. "However you knew my sister, I'm sure she's glad you came."

It wasn't until the girl turned her back on him and walked away, her foot steps retreating over the crisp grass underfoot, that Raizo allowed his body to deflate, slump forward and press his face against the coffin's side, and breathe.

Notes: *_Golgotha - place of [the] skull - (Kraniou Topos) in Greek_


	2. Chapter 2

**Title:** Golgotha (2/?)  
**Author:** Rebellioninabottle  
**Rating:** ?  
**Author's Note:** Okay, you're probably mad about chapter one, but I came to a realization of why I couldn't finish 'Bound': there was just no…weirdness about it, and I like writing some pretty weird stuff. So, then I started on this story and I realized, "Aw, what the hell! It doesn't have to be a Pulitzer and I don't have to follow story continuity to the 'T'!" Else why is it fanfiction? Don't worry, it'll make sense in the future.

_ii.  
__i don't want to miss a thing you do_

Sterile air and phosphorescent lights that stung when she opened her eyes.

She tried to breathe, but disinfectant choked her lungs.

Her lips trembled.

Her heart fluttered—_thumpthump thumpthump thumpthump._

She gasped, and her lungs turned to fire in her chest.

She gripped her hands into tight, tight fists. Forced her eyes opened. Breathed. Uttered a cry of pain. Tried to sit up.

"She's moving again."

"Restrain her."

"We don't want her to hurt herself again."

Hands, unfamiliar and covered in latex gloves, gripped her shoulders, her arms, her legs and forced her down. She looked up into faces covered with white masks and unfamiliar eyes that twisted into six sets of dark black shadows that drilled holes into her skull. She tried to scream. Choked.

"Calm down, miss," came a voice from her left and she whipped her head wildly in that direction. A man in a light green tunic and pants was holding his arms and hands out to her in a placating gesture. She shook her head at him but her neck could not support her and her head slumped to the side like a dead weight. Her eyes widened. Her muscles pulsed with life, but did not respond to her mental commands.

_Get up. _

_Get up._

"I think the medicine's still got her a bit loopy."

"It can't be helped. She was burned badly."

Burned.

Burned?

Fire ignited in her mind's eye, an inferno of death speeding towards her faster and faster and faster and faster, until she felt the memory of heat singe her skin and engulf her in the licking, dancing tongues of fire. She tried to scream again. It came out a hoarse shriek of fear.

"Give her another dose."

"But—"

"I said 'Give her another dose.' Heaven only knows what this woman has been through. Do it!"

"Yes, sir."

The fire died.

Her limbs felt heavy.

Her eyes fluttered shut.

Her heart beat sped up. Slowed. Sped up. Slowed. Slowed. Slowed.

And, finally…darkness took her.

x8x

She awoke to the sound of a machine whirring gently beside her and a room drenched in sunlight, everything aglow with this whitish gold, pre-dawn shimmer that for a moment she thought she had never woken up at all and was staring at her first real taste of heaven. But then a dull ache throbbed from somewhere along her side and she realized, _in heaven nothing hurts._

She was lying in bed, surprisingly comfortable, and looked around, not quite ready to sit up, studying her surroundings. She was in a hospital room, that much she was certain of. The walls were sterile, white, and on them were adorned generic picture frames of reprinted renditions of artistic works. A television sat suspended on a platform attached to the wall opposite her, muted, with an anchorman or some kind of news broadcaster reporting on current events. There was a large window, drapes only slightly closed, letting in the dawn light of early morning to her left and a hospital tray with a meal going cold and untouched beside her to her right, and beside that sat a heart monitor and an IV drip.

She breathed, felt the minute strain of wires against her chest where the monitor kept her heart rate. Finally, she sat up slowly, careful not to jostle the wires strapped to her, and breathed deeply, finding that her chest didn't burn like it had before and that the more she sucked in air, the easier breathing became. She rubbed a hand absently at her side and, frowning in confusion, found a swath of bandages surrounding the circumference of her abdomen and slightly tinged reddish brown with dry, old blood.

"Wh—" Her voice was hoarse and her throat felt raw. She blinked, tried to clear her throat and speak again: "What happened?"

Nothing answered her, and she looked around again, trying to see if she at least recognized her surroundings, but nothing came to her. She knew was in a hospital, but which hospital and where? She wasn't sure. She licked dry, chapped lips and, with one hand gingerly grasping her side, she pushed herself completely in a seated position with other, suddenly breathing hard. Her back protested the movement and her thighs strained as if neither had been used in a very long time, and she suspected—no, feared—that neither had.

When she got her breath back, she grabbed the blankets that were wrapped snuggly about her lower body and pulled, tugging them out of place and shoving them to the side. She turned back to look at her legs. Her eyes widened and she gasped in both shock and horror. Her right leg was bandaged much as her side was, all the way up to the knee and her left was littered with healed cuts, slightly bruised, but healed all the same.

"What the hell happened?" she asked, staring at her broken body in horror.

"You were in accident." The response was gently matter-of-fact, but she screamed anyway, nearly toppling from the hospital bed in alarmed fear. The woman who had spoken was clearly a nurse and immediately rushed to her side, catching her before she landed on the hospital's linoleum floor in an ungainly sprawl.

"Be careful!" the nurse cried, carefully helping her back into the bed. She glared at the older woman, but allowed the nurse to help her, settling back into her hospital bed and watching the older woman warily as she tucked the hospital sheets and bedspread back underneath her lower body.

"What accident?" she asked once the woman was finished. The nurse stood upright, hands on her hips and standing akimbo. Her name tag read Wilcox, Janet, and she glared at Nurse Wilcox expectantly. The older woman's look was speculative.

"You don't remember?" the older woman asked, puzzled. She shook her head adamantly.

The nurse pursed her lips. "You don't remember anything at all?"

She rolled her eyes and replied, sharply, "If I did, I wouldn't be asking now, would I?"

The nurse was unperturbed by her tone of voice. She just continued to watch her with that speculative look before turning and reaching to press a bright green button beside the hospital bed. She watched her, frowning.

"What aren't you telling me?" she asked. A tendril of fear rushed up her spine when the woman met her gaze again, the speculative look gone. It was replaced with something else, something she could not decipher.

"I've paged the doctor," the nurse replied. "I don't think—I'll let him explain."

Explain.

Explain, what? She sat back in her hospital bed, staring at the older woman in disbelief. What was going on? What had happened to her? Why was she in this hospital, with no recollection of how she'd gotten here? And why was Nurse Wilcox being so hush-hush about what was wrong with her?

She didn't have to wait long. A man, no older than forty it looked like, and draped in a doctor's lab coat, entered the room with what she assumed was her chart. She sat up, expectant, as the man flipped open the flat, metallic cover and read the contents listed. Finally, he looked up, fixing her with the same speculative look that the nurse had worn and asked, "So, how are we feeling today?"

She wanted to roll her eyes and shake the man. "I'm fine. Confused, but fine. What happened?"

"Just a moment." The doctor came near, and she drew back, wary. He smiled tightly, pulling from his lab coat a small flashlight no larger than a pen and leaned forward, flashing it once, twice in both her eyes, blinding her momentarily before he pulled back and made a notation on the chart. He nodded, uttered a 'hrumph' sound before looking up and meeting her gaze.

"You were in an accident," he informed her, simply. She crossed her arms over her chest.

"So, I've heard," she snapped, agitated, and nodded towards the chart he held. "That's not telling me what's happened."

"Do you remember anything else?" The doctor asked, making another notation on her chart. "Anything at all?" When she shook her head, the doctor uttered a resigned sort of sigh, closed the chart slowly and met her gaze squarely.

"You were in a car accident," he explained slowly. "The burns weren't too severe, but you did sustain some serious damage. Trauma to your legs—"he pointed—"your abdomen and a blow to your head." He paused, checking to see if she were following. She nodded slowly, swallowed thickly and waved him to continue.

"You've been in a coma for a few weeks," he continued. "You woke up here and there, talking nonsensically due to the trauma you faced, but for the most part, the coma was undisturbed. Now," and the doctor opened her chart again, scanned it over and looked up, meeting her gaze again, "I'm going to ask you a few questions and I want you to answer as truthfully as you can."

She nodded slowly, eyes darting from the doctor to the nurse and back again. "O-Okay."

"Do you know where you are?" He began.

"A hospital," she replied and watched as he wrote something down in her chart.

"Do you know what year it is?"

"Uhm, two-two thousand and ten?"

He nodded, wrote something else on her chart and continued, "And, what is your name?"

And at that she drew a blank. She blinked at him. "What?"

He looked up, glanced at the nurse then back at her. "Your name. What is your name?"

A cold chill washed over her and her eyes widened as she looked away, frowning. Her jaw worked as her breathing hitched and her hands suddenly clenched into tight, tight fists.

_Okay_, she told herself. _Just, just slow down. Don't panic. You know this. You _know_ this._

She wracked her brain, forcing the sudden whirl and jumble of panicked thoughts to settle into some kind of semblance of order so that she could pick through the pieces, sift through the bits and parts that were laid there in her mental eye and find the knowledge, the answer, which the doctor sought.

She was in a hospital.

The year was 2010.

And her name was?

Her name was?

She tried to control her breathing.

She was. In. A. Hospital.

The year was. Two. Thousand. And. Ten.

And her. Name. Was?

Her name was…

Her name was…

…

She looked up, her eyes as wide as saucers.

"I don't know." Her voice cracked. "I-I don't know."

x8x

_**Notes:  
**_'ll admit it: I'm still mad as hell at Raizo. "She'll be alright," and then you just up and leave, breathing in all that crappy mountain air? Seriously? You should be going to Berlin (or wherever the CRAP Mika ended up) and smecksin' her up! Yes, I said _smecksin_'! So, I'm making him suffer. SUFFER!


End file.
